230 ANATID.E. 



are noticed in the paragraph at page 202. The necessity for 

 tliis distinction has been acknowledged by M. Temminck him- 

 self, and tlie grounds for the separation are stated in the note 

 below,* from the 68th No. of the Planches Calories, Art. 406. 



I had the pleasure of first noticingi* this handsome Duck 

 as an occasional visiter to this country, in January 1826, 

 when a male was shot near Boston, while feeding on fresh- 

 water in company with some Wigeons. Though a well- 

 known species, inhabiting the eastern parts of Europe, it had 

 not previously been recorded to have been killed in England. 

 During the same winter several others were obtained ; more 

 than one occurred in the London markets, and were eagerly 

 purchased for collectors. One was secured by Mr. Bartlett, 

 as noticed in the Naturalist, vol. iii. p. 420. Since then a speci- 

 men has been killed at Yarmouth, another at Colchester, now in 

 the Museum of the Cambridge Philosophical Society ; and the 

 female represented by Mr. Gould, in the Sixth Part of his Birds 

 of Europe, is in the collection of the Hon. W. T. T. Fiennes. 

 This specimen was killed out of a flock of eighteen, on the 

 Thames, near that gentleman''s estate at Eritli in Kent. 



M. Vieillot says this species has been taken, though rarely, 

 in France. It has been included in two or three Histories 

 of the Birds of Germany. It is mentioned by M. Necker in 

 his published notice of the Birds of Geneva ; has been found 

 more than once in different parts of Switzerland and Pro- 

 vence ; has been seen at Genoa ; and is included by M. 

 Savi, in his Ornithology of Italy. Our countryman Wil- 

 lughby, it will be recollected, obtained this Duck in the mar- 



* " Nous avons cru necessaire de separer des canards proprement dits, et 

 de r^unir, toutes ces especes a doigt posterieur garni d'un rudiment de mem- 

 brane, vu que le squelette de ces oiseaux nous offre des differences marques et 

 constantes ; que leur maniere de vivre et le clioix des alimens ne sont pas les 

 mcmes que ciiez les canards a doigt posterieur lisse, et que les caracteres faciles 

 a saisir fournissenl de tres-bons moyens pour etablir la difference generique 

 entre ces deux groupes." 



+ Zoological Journal, \ol. ii. page 492, 



